5 Steps to Stay Centered in an Anxious World

There is a tremendous amount of collective anxiety in our world today. Even if things that are wrong on a massive scale don’t affect you directly, you will still feel the energetic weight of these occurrences. You will also feel the collective state of human anxiety on an energetic level.

So let’s discuss some steps to mitigate such influences. That way we can each act as a stabilizing force of energy in the world, plus preserve our own inner peace. And even though human society appears to be breaking down in many parts of the world, we can still find ways to live our individual lives in a grounded, focused, and personally harmonious way.

The way to do this is exceedingly practical. It involves doing some simple things related to how you view your life overall, and how you take command of your inner world, along with your outer, circumstantial world.

1 – Take Command of Your Inner World

The first thing you must do is take command of your inner experience. This is your core and your inner center. If you don’t do this, you will become reactive, confused, and easily stressed out.

This means setting aside some time each morning and again in the evening to center, pray, and balance yourself. There are many ways to do this, and here are a few suggestions:

Meditate – This can be done anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or more, depending on your method and desire. The best way to start is to close your eyes, go within, and focus on peaceful breathing and your heart center.

Gratitude exercises – Every day write a list of 10 things that you are grateful for today.

Affirmations – Write down statements that declare what you want to experience. Write them in the present tense, as though they are already happening.

Read inspiring, motivational books – This is a great way to lift your mood and give you an ongoing sense of hope. It also places positive thoughts in your consciousness.

Create your own customized spiritual practice – Make up a practice that has personal meaning for you. This can be setting aside time to listen to peaceful music, light a candle, have some tea, and talk to your angels. Or anything else that is original or a combination of the above suggestions.

Cultivating an inner world of peace and clarity is an important first step in taking command of your outer world. It is the center point from which you will take action in all other areas of your life.

2 – Take Command of Your Health

The main idea with each of these steps is to eliminate as much stress and anxiety as you can. If you become as healthy as possible, then you will feel supported by your physical body. You will feel more calm, more confident, and have more energy overall.

Through advertising, we have become conditioned to think that good health can be had by some magical formula, product, or pill. We think we can ignore and abuse our physical bodies, and then hopefully find some “secret sauce” that will cure our discomforts when we start to experience the physical consequences of taking our bodies for granted.

Here is the truth that we all know: Our bodies need adequate sleep, a healthy diet, and exercise. Technology might tempt us to believe that we have somehow evolved beyond these 3 main pillars of health. But that is absolutely not true, and we know this, don’t we?

So give your body what it needs to function at optimal levels, and you will be rewarded with a body that supports you.

3 – Take Command of Your Vision

The next thing to do is to provide yourself with a sense of direction in life. If you don’t do this, you will have no idea what to do with your time other than follow familiar routines that may not lead you where you want to go.

Your habits and patterns will control you, and you will be given to reacting to the circumstances around you. If those circumstances are not good, then you can start to feel anxious and out-of-control.

Start by deciding what your values are. Make a list of the things that are the most important to you. It could be things like family, career, travel, spirituality, prosperity, integrity, time to relax, or having your own business. Decide what matters most to you, so you have some guidelines in creating your vision.

Next, write out your vision. Imagine that your life is a painting and you are deciding what you want to put on the canvas. What is the outcome that you would like to experience? What do you want that finished painting to look like?

Now write out a statement of what you wish to create for yourself. Put a date on it. By when would you like to experience this and have it all in place? Be realistic. Think about what would be a reasonable amount of time to achieve what you want.

4 – Take Command of Your Plan

Now that you have your vision in place, divide it into projects. What are the various areas that you have to attend to in order to make this vision a reality? Here are some examples:

Education – Do you need to learn new things in order to achieve what you desire? If so, list this as a project.

Organization – Is there something you need to organize in order to create what you want? Do you need to reorganize your space? Eliminate clutter? Reorganize your schedule?

Research – Is there anything you need to research in order to find assistance or information that you need?

Communication – Do you need to communicate with certain people, or come to some new agreements in order to get things done?

This is only a general list of sample ideas. Your list will likely be much more specific to what you want.

If you break your vision down into projects, you have a basis upon which to plan how you will create the vision of your dreams.

Once you know what your projects are, you can decide a corresponding completion date for each one that leads to the manifestation of your larger vision.

The last thing you want to do here is to list the individual steps that you need to take in order to complete each project. If you want additional clarity, then put a completion date on each step that corresponds with the final completion date for the overall project.

5 – Take Command of Your Time

You can’t really control time, but you can control what you do with it. That’s what time management is all about. It’s really about managing your activities and where you place those activities on a clock or calendar.

Even though many of us resist doing this, it is a great way to stay centered and eliminate anxiety. Here is why:

If you don’t decide where you want to go and how you want to get there, you are basically just a leaf in the wind. You will be overly influenced by meaningless distractions and other people’s agendas. You may experience the anxiety that comes from feeling out-of-control. You could fall prey to guilt and fear.

The greatest benefit in taking command of what you do with your time is that it aligns you with your deepest desires. It aligns your activities with your goals. But most of all, it causes you to feel in control of your life. It causes you to feel congruent with yourself, rather than randomly reactive to other people and situations.

Being randomly reactive to other people and situations can be kind of scary in today’s world! You never know what you’re going to encounter.

This is about putting your hands on the steering wheel and feeling in control of your life. It’s about feeling that you are in control of the outcome.

So look at your projects and the completion dates that you put on them. Now get out a calendar and figure out what you need to complete each month. Break that down into weekly goals for the current month. And finally, each day decide what you are going to do to fulfill your agenda for that week. That is breaking it down into daily planning.

Now you have relieved yourself of a great burden! All you have to think about is what you are going to do today. You have taken care of when the rest is supposed to happen, so you no longer have that weighing on you.

Stay Motivated!

These five steps might seem like a lot, but if you just do one thing at a time, it’s not that complicated. The main thing is motivation. So let’s finish with that.

You must always be clear about WHY you are doing what you’re doing. What are the benefits that you want to experience from your efforts?

The greatest ongoing benefit is the feeling that you have your hands on the steering wheel of your life. It is the feeling that you are in control. This is a tremendous way to relieve all sorts of anxiety.

Another benefit is that you have clearly signaled to God and the Universe that you are serious about experiencing the life you want. It is difficult for divine love to assist a person who has no idea about what they want or where they’re going.

And the final benefit is the fulfillment of living as a creator and being a self-determined individual. This produces tremendous confidence that you can and will experience the happy outcome you desire!

I made some notes about these 5 steps that you can download for free, in case you want to apply these steps in your life. Just click the box below to get your instant download. 🙂

Do you have a sense that these ideas could help you to feel stability and centeredness in your life? Leave me a comment below and share your thoughts with us!

Yay for the gym, Elaine! I love the gym. And you’re right – you do have to plan for that quality time, if you want to have a decent workout without rushing. It’s also important to plan for things we love. Sometimes we forget that. 🙂

Thank you Saratoga, i just made a chart to keep in front of me as I ingraine these principles into my consciousness. This feels so crucial, now more than ever. Thank you for such a bright guiding light as we grow our wings, thank you! With Love and Gratitude ♡

Barb, you emailed me that chart and it’s awesome! I actually wanted to create something like that – like notes for everyone to download, but I didn’t have time before Monday. I may still create it and add it to this blog post. Better late than never, right?

So stay tuned, everyone. I’ll let you know if I do so, so you can come back here and get it. 🙂

Saratoga, the structure within these guidelines is very specific–which I often tend not to be, so I appreciate this routine of scheduling my actions in the ways you are suggesting. I do some of these things regularly, but not everything, like “writing things down” to more clearly identify and thus actualize what I want to create.

Clarifying and putting all of this into context makes sense. Practical means doing–something I need help with. I love the way the daily inner work can ground me so that I will be less distracted and more effective in getting things done. I do a lot of inner work but I don’t transition that enough into consistent actions.

So valuable… you always seem to know what I need and when.
Saratoga, you are always at the right place at the right time !! 🙂
And you always know exactly where I’m stuck and need guidance.

Saratoga, thanks for your insights and pertinent advice. I guess after so many years of rejection and being unsuccessful in the music realm I gave up. My inner voice is telling me that the time has come to go forward again, in a different way. Thank you for all of the inspiration, and honest feedback.
Leigh

Leigh, I think it’s a great idea to go forward in a different way. This is a perfect example of why I talk about creativity so much. There is probably an entirely different approach that perhaps you hadn’t thought of before.

If we persist in thinking that creativity is only for the arts, we miss out on applying that to our thinking as well.

I totally know what you mean about the music realm, because I think it’s like that in all of the arts. But we don’t have to confine ourselves to the commercial world alone. Creative thinking is what allows us to come up with new, original approaches of our own that are outside of the box.

Awe thank you for this sometimes going back to basics is needed to help get centered and in control .
I have had a challenge with certain people not understanding why my Life has taken a turn in a different direction since my cancer journey last year .
Am told I’ve change and only have time for some more than others, I don’t waste to much energy justifying . I just know am where I need to be and sometimes it’s not with certain people .

This an amazing way to stay involved with your life, in today’s world everyone knows best, this has come at exactly the right time for me. My life has changed dramatically in the last 12 months, through illness I can not do anything I used to do, in terms of sporting activities and so on. I need to reinvent myself and this 5 step plan is perfect for me. Thank you so much for caring so much for people in general the world needs more people like you. I save all you’re face book items. Cheers Saratoga Ocean you are an angel on earth spreading the goodness that is so lac King cheers.

Michael, I am so happy that you find this helpful. Thank you so much for your kind words. I think your approach of reinventing yourself sounds awesome! I hope that you find making the necessary changes to be an exciting, creative adventure. 🙂

You see I’m at war with my inner voice and she is persistent. When I first started reading your blog it was throught her eyes. She was saying,” yea right, to hard, that’s crazy, won’t work, can’t do that.” Then I read, Put your hands on the steering wheel, and the knot in the pit of my stomach desolved. I lean back and rest my head on the back of my chair and what felt like the first time in my life, I felt freed. I know this was not what you were writing about, Thank you anyway.

Thank you for this! Along with debilitating anxiety, I struggle with depression and have serious motivation issues. I feel like life is slipping through my fingers.

Last night while meditating to the latest Deepak/Oprah free meditation series, I realized what I want most in life at this time is peacefulness, contentment. This morning I find this in my Facebook feed. Perfect!

It all sounds fine….but when you have been blessed ir cursed with many talents and interests and spend your life in total confusion as to which one to devote the most time to…its a constant pull from one to the other and nothing gets enough seriious attention..

This is excellent advice and an excellent guide. I am 75 and struggling to get over the death of my second husband three months ago (I llost first husband in a road accident, and the second had a massive heart attack). Just four days after the death if my second husband, my daughter’s husband also died of a heart attack at the age of 42. So not a good time and difficult to see a happy future at my age. But I am fit (I’m a tai chi instructor) and determined to move forward. So thank you.. This will be a great help

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